HostingCon 2017 Panel: The New Politics of Technology and the GDPR

We are aware that politics affects our personal and professional lives. Recently, at Data Center World Global in Los Angeles, a panel of hosting experts including Bryan Bogensberger, Founder/CEO, Quiver Media Inc; John Crain, Chief Security, Stability & Resiliency Officer, ICANN; David Snead, Board and Public Policy Working Group Chair, Internet Infrastructure Coalition / I2Coalition; Eli Scher, Chairman and CEO New Continuum Data Centers; and Robert DeVita, Chief Sales Officer of fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty (1547) and board member of Open-IX, addressed what effect today’s politics will have on the technology industry. Some of the most interesting topics that came up included:

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the EU

Approved by the EU Parliament on April 14, 2016, the GDRP goes into effect on May 25, 2018 and is intended to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the EU and address the export of personal data outside the EU. The panel focused on the fact that this is coming and companies have to prepare – if they have not already. A great resource for information about this is the GDPR Awareness Coalition, a not-for-profit, fixed-term initiative, established March 28, 2017 to educate and share information with the market about developments.

Repeal of Internet Privacy Rules in the US

This month, President Trump signed a bill repealing internet privacy rules passed last year by the FCC that protected users’ data from service providers. The panel discussed this from many angles:

What defines personal information?

What is on social media

Your GPS location

What information is already out there about you?

Why not extend the way Google and Amazon use personal data to ISPs – is there any difference?

What is the issue if users’ personal data is already out there?

Is the real issue not data, but rather what companies can do with it?

Digital Trade

The panel agreed that we are now in a digital trade surplus and we will simply not throw the internet under the bus. NAFTA is a great contributor of where we are and we are still heading in a good direction. Robert DeVita agreed that there is more activity with small businesses, as spending is active and SMBs are making big decisions in terms of digital trade.

Net Neutrality

Where is it headed? With the repeal of internet privacy rules, the next step could be no more net neutrality. What does this mean? Consider the internet a highway flooded with data. If you want to get to where you need to get to faster, you take the express lane, but there is a fee – this is no different. So looking at two audiences – consumers and businesses – they would be affected by higher fees and prioritization in some respect. Per John Crain, in the EU, you pay for what you get. So why should this be any different?

No matter which side you take on any of these issues, at least one will affect your business in 2017.